Look, you can't lay all that on my shoulders. Don't you know how much this place stinks? Don't you know what it's like to stand day after day in blood? In the blood of children? I hate this place. And if I can't stand up to it to your satisfaction, then --- then the hell with it. How dare you? The hell with your Iowa naivete, and the hell with your hero worship and your teddy bear, and while you're at it, the hell with you. Why don't you grow up for crying out loud? I'm not here for you to admire. I'm here to pull bodies out of a sausage grinder -- if possible, without going crazy. Period.

I used to live in Korea. North Korea does this on at least a quarterly basis; far more often if they feel sad and want extra attention. Their declarations of imminent war are treated just one step less seriously than crazy drunken hoboes' declarations of war.

I think everyone in Korea believes that it could happen... and most of them probably believe that the head crazy drunken hobo probably WILL pull the trigger someday... but he has been hysterically threatening to commit suicide by warfare every week for 60 years.

Nobody there even hears it anymore- it's just background noise.

The only new thing happening is that NewKim's press corps is actively seeking a new audience for their noise, with some success.

I'm pretty sure we want to avoid this war because we /would/ win. We'd be on the hook for rebuilding a national infrastructure from the ground up, with a people that--by many accounts--actually believe a lot of the garbage spewed their way.

Countries have been knocking together armies to essentially expand their borders, accrue wealth and increase the population of slaves forever. We fight over who God is, what his name is and what we're supposed to be doing about it and we sure as hell ain't gonna take any crap off THOSE motherf*ckers with that cheap, tin plated god. Nosiree. We fight over which book by which egghead that we never read is the one true way to run the world that will one day call us back to the dust, and we still can't run it. And I mean, this is our best idea to date after thousands of years of "Dang, I guess that didn't work" to learn better.

Every so often there's a huge clusterf*ck of a war and millions of people snuff it. Moms and dads, babies, mostly poor people because poor people are the source of all wealth and labor. Why yes, Alanis. It is. So we knock together flags and keep advancing technology and finding more effective hardware to wipe each other off the face of the earth, and we end up being led by people with goofy moustaches, failed B actors, guys in stupid hats and robes and squinty little f*cks who look like overfed guinea pigs and we rush out to play in traffic to defend their bad ideas and make sure no wealth is moved from our desk to the other guys desk. Because we're patriots, bah gawd. And the same Kool Aid with a different label from a different area of the map gets dispensed daily for a lot of reasons that nobody can quite put their finger on, but hey, if it's war they want!

So, essentially, ours is a history of user application error, unmitigated greed, addlepated old men, soaked with hubris and narcissism playing chess with our asses. And some of the most well crafted machinery of destruction you've ever seen. And we are quite certain that after every single genocide fandango, that the last man standing has changed the world. And nothing changes. And we get new doodads, and food is more available and somebody comes up with a cure for something that nobody can afford to be cured of. And the fat old men lick their wounds and put on their best macaroni hat and uniform and count the loot and bury the fallen and we call this "the way it is". And we haven't learned sh*t. And we teach our kids to celebrate this. And then we wonder why nothing gets better.

Simultaneously 3 North Korean Sang-O submarines come to the surface, originally 6 were sent, and refueled at several points along the way by disguised refueling ships.... 4 arrived at their destinations.... trinity bay in Houston, Hudson River in New York, and off Seal beach in California. They detonate with a average nuclear explosion strength of 4 megatons (NK nuclear test in 2009 as estimated at 2-6 megatons). North Korea claims 3 more submarines remain, and threatens to detonate them along the united states coastlines, and announcing that 3 are in the European area. In reality, one remains. Total life lost is in the millions, and damage is in the hundreds of billions.

the remaining 34 in the class, several upgraded to the Sang-O II class, begin operations against united states naval vessels. The 10 Yono class submarines are used to bring infiltrators and special ops military into South Korea.

5,000 tanks, thousands of APC's, 7,500 mortars, and 8,000+ artillery begins attacking South Korea, backed up by the 1,106,000 active duty personel. 8,200,000 reservist are called up (the largest military reserve in the world), promised South Korean land and wealth if they are victorious.

250 Mig series aircraft, 80 Harbin H-5 bombers, and another 100 strike aircraft assault south Korea airfields, and military centers.

Using nuclear weapons, nerve gas, and chemical weapons as force multipliers, its a total all out war the likes of which the planet has never seen before.

knowing the only hope of victory lies in all out fast warfare, following the Germany blitzkrieg tactics, Everything is thrown into a assault. Mixing North Korean military targets in with South Korean forces and civilians before the United states uses nuclear weapons on their military centers. While incredibly effective the South Korean country is overwhelmed with numbers, asymmetric warfare, and the usage of weapons that are viewed by the world with horror.

Least...thats how I would do it if I was a crazy dictator who thought my only hope to survive was to go to war. Probably end up dead, but hey-no one would ever forget my name.

Greywar:Actually here is my prediction. They're going to go a bit further. They WILL execute a military strike and try to kill a few people. Maybe sink a ship like last time. Not enough to kick off a war, but enough that they can try and force people to take them to the negotiating table.

From there..who knows. This is the sort of thing that can get DRASTICALLY out of hand. so it could stop there, go for the retaliation strike and stop, OR...they get nailed to the wall bad.

If they actually launch on a united states city such as Honolulu....that would be a truly truly bad idea. Seriously bad idea, and they may not realize how bad of an idea, thinking it would be something along the line of sinking the south Korean ship like they did a couple years ago.

So my bet...60% they try and escalate just a tiny bit (ie shoot up a patrol boat level, or fire some artilary on South Korean military forces on the border) to try and go to the table and negotiate from what they will think is a position of strength, 40% it all quiets down and is nothing.

Now for REAL fun..and paranoia....

What if China has secretly provided them with some state of the art weapons, and Korea uses those to launch accurate attacks on a US mainland city? Good way for China to see what our defenses are really like, and then China can step in and try and negotiate it down, with the hint that they will step in and defend Korea again? Maybe just with their navy? This way lies madness....but the paranoid part of me wonders...what if?

China has already indicated they don't want Best Korea to start any kind of war, and they've told Lil' Kim to STFU and stand down already, more than once. They are not interested in a shooting war right now. And if they have any "state of the art" weapons, they are so supersecret that nobody in the world knows about them, because the most paranoid freaks out there have not been even thinking about them yet. China has nothing to gain by testing our defenses that way--our military is pretty much out in the open and how we'd respond to a strike on a US mainland city by a genuine military threat is not open to question: It would be with nukes.

Now, if you want to be paranoid, consider this: China's recent hacking attempts have been to steal industrial secrets and commercial patents, which is costly but ultimately useless, since they can always reverse-engineer any patented items. But what if those hacks were not to steal patents and IP, but merely diversions to plant invisible Stuxnet-style viruses, which are now lying dormant inside the corporate servers? They'd be waiting for a certain date in the future, or for a specific number of sales, phone calls, etc., to activate and execute---or maybe just open a backdoor to allow another stealth virus into the system.

Farfetched, perhaps, but two key precepts from Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu are: All warfare is based on deception; and use a diversionary attack to distract your enemy and a direct attack to win. So while we were looking at hacks that were stealing our precious bodily fluids, er, our precious industrial patents, they could have slipped a war virus in behind our backs. Not impossible.

WhoopAssWayne:I know the liberals rolled up their war protest banners the very day Obama became president

You don't know sh*t; not everyone is as blindly partisan as you.Obama took plenty of criticism from the left for simply not ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan quickly enough, and he would take way more if he started a unilateral "liberation" war with NK. But he won't because he isn't a goddamn braindead f**kwit like Bush. If he does I will loudly berate him for it, but he won't. If Un DOES do something stupid, he will do only what is necessary to protect SK and disable NK, and will try to get NATO allies in to help like with Libya.

Oh geez, I wonder why the media decides to hype the over bloated words of an over bloated man of a country that poses no threat to the US....

Why are people so goddamn stupid? They have been talking shiat about the USA and South Korea for the last 70 years and for some reason now it's an emergency? Hmmmm let me see, is it because the war machine is winding down in one part of the world and we need to keep throwing money at our military monopsonists in order to keep them happy?

"The Kaesong Industrial Complex, located just across the northern side of the border, is staffed by South and North Koreans. It can't function without Pyongyang's daily okay. If the North suddenly shuts down Kaesong at some point, watch out. But as long as it's still running, as it has been throughout the provocations and tensions of the last few weeks, we can probably - probably - assume that North Korea is not actually planning to launch a war."

MelGoesOnTour:My guess is that NK will release a statement saying something to the effect of "The US and South Korea have ceased their hostilities due to our mightiness" and then go back to being weirdo's as usual.

It's scary to think that the populace an ENTIRE FARKING COUNTRY can be brainwashed into believing shiat like that.

To understand what's happening now, you have to look at the history of the place. Most people here seem to pass bad information around, sadly.The 13th century is described as North Korea's Golden Age, with peace and increase in trade, especially with the British Islands, although Germany became increasingly important towards the end of the century.

Throughout the High Middle Ages the king established North Korea as a state with a central administration with local representatives. In 1349 the Black Death spread to North Korea and had within a year killed a third of the population. Later plagues reduced the population to half the starting point by 1400. Many communities were entire wiped out, resulting in an abundance of land, allowing farmers to switch to more animal husbandry. The reduction in taxes weakened the king's position, and many aristocrats lost the basis for their surplus, reducing some to mere farmers. High tithes to church made it increasingly powerful and the archbishop became a member of the Council of State.

The Ranseatic League took control over North Korean trade during the 14th century and established a trading center in Seoul (then known as "Republic Of Seoul" or R-Seoul in the literal translation). In 1380 King Ving inherited both the North Korean and South Korean thrones, creating a union between the two countries which lasted all the way up until the 2nd major rectification, or the third season. In 1397, under Rarget I, the Rakim Union was created between the three countries and Eric B IV. She waged war against the people of Istabbul, due to a tragic misunderstanding of a smudged letter, resulting in a trade blockade and higher taxation on North Korean's (and by this time, North Korea was known as "New Oldland", which resulted in a rebellion. However, the North Korean Council of State was too weak to pull out of the union at that time, or at least that is what it claimed shortly afterwards.

All this lead to increased and sustained tensions between New Oldland, Turkey, South Korea (then known as "New OldNewLand") and for some reason, Iceland. The situation we see today is a direct result of choices made R-Seoul, which was then known as the capital of New OldNewLand and called "ErianBnoVille" (direct translation of the original New OldNewLandian word).

fark this fat biatch Un, I say we bomb the North into the early Paleolithic. Then we send in teams with HAZMAT suits to retrieve every last eyeball, hunk of flesh, and tuft of hair from that place, pack it into a shipping container, and lob that sonofabiatch straight into Iran with a message scrawled on the side:

I'm mostly a Western Europe with a little bit South American politics type, so pretty much lost regarding Best Korea and kin. But Li'l Kim is the third one of the family in charge after dad and grandpa, yes?

Could a general be twitching, thinking he isn't getting any younger, so lets get this goober out of office by feeding him a line that rattling the saber will make us Yankee Imperialists give them some more food/money? In this case, escalating it to the aforementioned crazy level, because, well, the U.S. has to give us stuff now that we have nukes and super missiles to take out Austin.

Feed Kim the right disinformation, and he'd likely buy it, nu? Fire some rounds across the DMZ, get a NK village razed and maybe a few artillery positions taken out. Speak out publicly that you realize that Kim has gone insane, execute him thanks to some well placed cronies, take the head of state position, humbly pay reparations and accept humanitarian aid, and live happily ever after in charge.

I realize I have no cultural insight other than what I grok of human nature, but this seems to be escalating too quickly and linearly. Anyone care to point out what mistakes in interpretation I might be making?

teenage mutant ninja rapist:Mock26: Hey Limp Dick, you do not have the farking balls to attack South Korea and the American troops stationed there. You are just a scared little boy. So go ahead and posture all you want, because the rest of the world laughs at your idiotic, pathetic displays. And, more importantly, they laugh at you. In fact, here is a picture I made a while back, one where I am completely mocking you!

Im startitng to wounder if mabey just mabey that chubby little twat reads fark. I mean he sure seems pissed off.Is it possible were the ones behind it all?

Mock26:Hey Limp Dick, you do not have the farking balls to attack South Korea and the American troops stationed there. You are just a scared little boy. So go ahead and posture all you want, because the rest of the world laughs at your idiotic, pathetic displays. And, more importantly, they laugh at you. In fact, here is a picture I made a while back, one where I am completely mocking you!

Im startitng to wounder if mabey just mabey that chubby little twat reads fark. I mean he sure seems pissed off.Is it possible were the ones behind it all?

New boogy man needed.Seal team 6 members keep dieing.Economic meltdown coming soon.Increased defense spending.Distraction from expensive vacations of president and vice president.Billions of rounds for Homeland Security. Enough to kill us 5 times.

My best Guess for Lil Kim hatin on Austin is Lil Kim dont like Texas because of Bush, and since Austin is the capitol of Texas to a foreigner thats never been there it must be the most Texasy part of Texas, right?

Actually here is my prediction. They're going to go a bit further. They WILL execute a military strike and try to kill a few people. Maybe sink a ship like last time. Not enough to kick off a war, but enough that they can try and force people to take them to the negotiating table.

From there..who knows. This is the sort of thing that can get DRASTICALLY out of hand. so it could stop there, go for the retaliation strike and stop, OR...they get nailed to the wall bad.

If they actually launch on a united states city such as Honolulu....that would be a truly truly bad idea. Seriously bad idea, and they may not realize how bad of an idea, thinking it would be something along the line of sinking the south Korean ship like they did a couple years ago.

So my bet...60% they try and escalate just a tiny bit (ie shoot up a patrol boat level, or fire some artilary on South Korean military forces on the border) to try and go to the table and negotiate from what they will think is a position of strength, 40% it all quiets down and is nothing.

Now for REAL fun..and paranoia....

What if China has secretly provided them with some state of the art weapons, and Korea uses those to launch accurate attacks on a US mainland city? Good way for China to see what our defenses are really like, and then China can step in and try and negotiate it down, with the hint that they will step in and defend Korea again? Maybe just with their navy? This way lies madness....but the paranoid part of me wonders...what if?

scottydoesntknow:tinyarena: RobertBruce: Are the stories about their huge conventional arsenal of artillery aimed south even partially true?

Well, let's look at the choices here. Either they are master magicians, and world hide and seek champions,,,or

[blogs.scientificamerican.com image 220x300]

That's a photo of lights and energy. That's why Pyongyang is the sole bright source. You don't need either for conventional weaponry and they do have a lot.

Perhaps they do, but here's the seriously stupid part. It's not the 1950's anymore.

Any concentration of activity, in a wilderness, will stand out. If the surrounding area is not built up, the thermal radiation is easier to detect. With ground penetrating radar we see where there is activity, since there is nothing above it. If they have installations, in the middle of nowhere, we'll know it.

I think it would be hilarious for someone in the UN to say to the NK ambassor to "be quiet while the adults are talking." Someone needs to make it clear that we consider them to be a noisy and unruly child who needs a spanking and a time out.

wantingout:Its funny that every time economic doom seems imminent, another country comes along that needs invadin'.

You don't really believe that wars help the economy, do you? That's a really tired piece of tripe that hasn't been true for a long time.

Since we have gigantic stockpiles of weaponry and military equipment, the industries that produce those things don't need to add new jobs nor innovate new technologies just because a war breaks out. All war means is that we spend a whole lot of money on deploying people, buying fuel for our existing war machines, and paying medical expenses for injured soldiers. The last couple wars we fought hurt the economy immensely by sucking up well over a trillion dollars that we didn't have on something that hardly contributed one iota to the country's bottom line. I don't know if you noticed, but the Iraq war didn't exactly catapult the economy, and the economic climate right now is on the upswing despite the fact that we just ENDED two wars. We sure as hell don't need another one.

Hey Limp Dick, you do not have the farking balls to attack South Korea and the American troops stationed there. You are just a scared little boy. So go ahead and posture all you want, because the rest of the world laughs at your idiotic, pathetic displays. And, more importantly, they laugh at you. In fact, here is a picture I made a while back, one where I am completely mocking you!

The last thing we need is our great warrior/community activist president getting us into another costly war. It's just the kind of stupidity we've come to expect from this thin-skinned, chickenhawk chickensh*t and I bet he's chomping at the bit to jump right in if things go south. As citizens and taxpayers, we must make it a priority to strip war powers from both the president and the congress. All foreign military actions must be paid with war bonds, not tax money, just like World War II. If the people don't support the action and don't buy the bonds, there's no money to fight, and no war. And if our divisive little sh*thead of a president stirs up the usual liberal idiots enough to actually get us involved somewhere, all it will take to get us out is a shift in popular opinion. If we had this model in Iraq, I'm guessing we would have been out after only a couple of years. But the bottom line is this: No tax money for foreign wars!

Repeat

I know the liberals rolled up their war protest banners the very day Obama became president - rolled them up and turned their back on our war-mongering around the globe, but if you - regardless of political party - think this continuous cycle of war is just bullsh*t and, as a society, see this behavior as fundamentally counter-productive then you should probably see at least a little value in what I'm proposing - effectively putting war-making ability directly into the hands of the citizens and taxpayers, just like we did in WW2.

ClavellBCMI:Best Korea is at war with Better Korea. They have *always* been at war with Better Korea (at least, since 1950). The temporary lull in actual shooting at each other full-time has only existed since the US got the UN (minus China, which was absent for the vote in the Security Council) to kick their asses and forced them to sign an armistice in 1953. Kim Jong-Un can't count on Chinese "volunteers" to bail his ass out this time.

It was the USSR which wasn't present, China was. . .well, the ROC at least, don't forget that the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) was the China that held the UN seat until the PRC pulled some chickenshiat political games and got the ROC kicked out and replaced with the PRC, leaving the ROC being an independent sovereign nation de-facto banished from the U.N. because of the arrogant hubris of the "One China" policy.

Rwa2play:AppleOptionEsc: Oh boy-oh-boy. I can't wait for the Russia-China-USA dick waving contest on seeing who wants to "keep the peace" more and betterer.

That's the joke (I think): Russia doesn't really care what happens to Best Korea, China's just about washed their hands of them and the US pretty much has it outgunned. So...rattling the saber isn't doing much.

think there is any chance that deep down, Un truly believes china has his back? Even being raised outside of NK, maybe he has been groomed to think he literally is a god, and no one can touch him.

AppleOptionEsc:Oh boy-oh-boy. I can't wait for the Russia-China-USA dick waving contest on seeing who wants to "keep the peace" more and betterer.

That's the joke (I think): Russia doesn't really care what happens to Best Korea, China's just about washed their hands of them and the US pretty much has it outgunned. So...rattling the saber isn't doing much.

Best Korea is at war with Better Korea. They have *always* been at war with Better Korea (at least, since 1950). The temporary lull in actual shooting at each other full-time has only existed since the US got the UN (minus China, which was absent for the vote in the Security Council) to kick their asses and forced them to sign an armistice in 1953. Kim Jong-Un can't count on Chinese "volunteers" to bail his ass out this time.